Fair Police Contracts

Police unions have used their influence to establish unfair protections for police officers in their contracts with local, state and federal government and in statewide Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights. These provisions create one set of rules for police and another for civilians, and make it difficult for Police Chiefs or civilian oversight structures to punish police officers who are unfit to serve. Learn more about how police union contracts help officers avoid accountability here.

Policy Solutions

Remove contract provisions, local policies, and provisions in state Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights laws that:

allow officers to wait 48 hours or more before being interrogated after an incident

prevent investigators from pursuing other cases of misconduct revealed during an investigation

prevent an officer's name or picture from being released to the public

prohibit civilians from having the power to discipline, subpoena or interrogate police officers

state that the Police Chief has the sole authority to discipline police officers

enable officers to appeal a disciplinary decision to a hearing board of other police officers

enable officers to use the contract grievance process to have an outside arbitrator reverse disciplinary decisions and reinstate officers who have committed misconduct

prevent an officer from being investigated for an incident that happened 100 or more days prior

allow an officer to choose not to take a lie detector test without being punished, require the civilian who is accusing that officer of misconduct to pass a lie detector first, or prevent the officer's test results from being considered as evidence of misconduct

Keep officers' disciplinary history accessible to police departments and the public

Remove contract provisions, local and state policies, and provisions in state Law Enforcement Officers' Bills of Rights laws that allow police officers to:

expunge or destroy records of past misconduct (both sustained and unsustained) from their disciplinary file

prevent their disciplinary records from being released to the public via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request